Heir to $100 million ice-cream empire says private investigators raped his wife when he hired them to spy on her
David Smith, 52, the heir to the $100 million Chipwich and Eskimo Pie ice-cream empire, claims in a case filed with the Nashua County Supreme Court that private investigators that he had hired to follow his once-estranged wife for three years ended up raping her.
Smith, who is now back together with spouse Susanne Gold-Smith, 45, said he had hired private detectives with International Investigative Group on a $140,000 per week contract to follow the latter at casinos, concerts, and nightclubs, Daily Mail reported.
However, Richard Custodio, one of the investigators, broke into her Long Island home and sexually assaulted her. He "climbed on top of her and initiated unwanted, invasive sexual relations" according to Smith's claims.
Gold-Smith "ultimately surrendered to Custodio's sexual demands, as she was afraid to resist out of fear of retribution," the case added.
The lawsuit also named former NYPD officer Yanti Greene, who now works as a PI, as one of the assaulters. In April 2018, Greene lured the victim into his car and "removed Gold-Smith's pants, climbed on top of her and initiated invasive sexual relations," the suit added.
There were also allegations of drugging Gold-Smith, taking her to his car in the supermarket parking lot and raping her. He even allegedly made a recording of the deed.
While Custodio has denied the allegations against him, Green has claimed that it was Gold-Smith who raped him.
He said that after making "constant sexual and perverted advances" toward him for months, the defendant tracked him down in an empty shopping center parking lot and forced him to engage in oral sex with him. In a separate instance at a future date, she sought him out at the same location and sexually assaulted him, Greene claimed.
"She then got off of the defendant, climbed back into the rear seating area and forcefully pulled the defendant into the rear seating area with her, then forcefully unbuckled and unzipped the defendant's pants" Greene alleges.
The lawsuit lists two of the investigators who allegedly sexually assaulted Gold-Smith, while three more who coerced her into sexual foreplay.
Smith is demanding that the investigative firm pay him back $8.8 million, that he spent to have his wife tracked from February 2016 to January 2019, with an additional $30 million for fraud and gross negligence.
After the couple split in 2016, Gold-Smith sued her husband claiming he demanded sex in exchange for visits with their 11-year-old son, last year. “If I didn’t sleep with him, unfortunately, I wouldn’t see my son for months at a time,” she said at the time, New York Post reported. "I surrendered for my son. Instead of holding a gun over my head raping me, he would hold my son over my head."